


batcoons

by happyrobins



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Gen, jason has a soft spot for stray animals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-02
Updated: 2014-05-02
Packaged: 2018-01-21 14:28:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1553654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/happyrobins/pseuds/happyrobins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jason and raccoons have a lot in common. (Additionally: his so-called family are much bigger pests than the stray animals hanging around his safehouse.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	batcoons

The perimeter alarm goes off. Again.

Jason’s sprawled across his bed, listening to the faint  _beep beep_  for the sixth time in the past half hour.

He is not in the mood to deal with this right now, but there’s gotta be something fucked up with the sensors—they’re registering false alarms more and more frequently—and he should probably get around to fixing it before that one instance when it’s not a false alarm and he gets ambushed by a bunch of ninja while taking a shower.

Groaning, he drags himself away from the warm blankets and outside into the biting winter air. It’s fucking cold outside. It’s gotta be the coldest day of the year so far, and it’s only going to get colder once the sun goes down.

He wishes he could take the night off, stay home where it’s warm. But he has too much crap to take care of later.

Jason checks the sensors hidden along the brick walls of the building, and they’re working fine. He figures the strong wind’s been messing with them, he probably just needs to dial down the sensitivity a notch—

A rattling noise makes him whirl around. Glowing, yellow, demonic-looking eyes are hovering in the shadows. He swears under his breath, reaching for the gun inside his jacket.

The creature moves, and Jason’s sight adjusts to the dim light enough to see that it’s just a raccoon. A black-masked raccoon watching him apprehensively from atop pile of busted wooden crates, whiskers twitching, eyes glinting from the light of the streetlamps.

Jason slides the gun away and takes a small step closer. The raccoon’s just a small guy, not a whole lot bigger than a cat. There aren’t many stray animals around these streets. It’s too industrial, mostly warehouses, surprisingly quiet and empty for the seedy side of Gotham. Not a lot to scavenge from. All the worthwhile trashbins are a few blocks over.

This isn’t the first time he’s seen a raccoon in Gotham, but they sure aren’t as common as stray cats and dogs. He notices that this one is missing the end of his tail. It must’ve gotten frozen off.

It’s been a hard winter for everyone.

Jason grits his teeth and stops himself from shivering in the cold. This scene, this alleyway and this fucking raccoon pawing around looking for scraps, makes him think about _back then_. The worst of the worst times. Things he doesn’t like to remember. Days even colder than this, numb skin and muddy shoes, being hungry and not knowing when he’d get to eat again.

The raccoon gives in to common sense and runs away from Jason, a slight limp to his gait. Jason goes back indoors before he freezes his ears off. Later, when he’s suited up and heading out to take care of some important business around town—business that’ll only be solved with bullets—he stops and leaves a leftover slice of pizza on that stack of crates.

He knows it’s a bad idea, but that doesn’t stop him. And it doesn’t stop him the next day either, when he casually drops an apple out of his tiny kitchen window into the alleyway below.

 

 

Jason has other safehouses, but this one has the most reliable electricity and working plumbing, and it’s in a good spot—close to the action, but still quiet—so most of the time he winds up here after a long night out on the town.

When he hears the ding of the proximity alert he knows that means the critter is lurking in his alley, so he opens his kitchen window and drops some scraps of food down. He isn’t sure what raccoons eat, but that doesn’t seem to be a problem. Anything he leaves outside, any sort of meat or fruit or snacks or leftovers, disappears within minutes. He buys a pack of cat treats and the raccoon goes as nuts over them as the cats in the commercials.

Sometimes Jason watches and waits for the raccoon to show himself. He leans out the open window, his arms crossed on the sill, smoking a cigarette and ignoring the bite of the chilly wind.

Doesn’t ever take long for the raccoon to crawl out of the darker shadows and grab the food greedily. He looks up at Jason with beady, eerily glowing eyes, gauging him. Jason waves down at him lazily and breathes out a puff of smoke.

"Hey, buddy. How’s it going?"

As the weeks pass, the furry pest gets more ballsy. He scales the stack of crates under Jason’s kitchen window to get closer to the food source. He seems to learn when Jason arrives home, and he waits there patiently for Jason to drop the usual food down. It makes Jason think the guy lives awfully close by.

It gets to the point where the demanding little shit climbs up and perches right on the windowsill, chittering indignantly until Jason can’t stand it anymore and gives him something to eat, just to make him shut up.

 

 

One night, Jason finds himself in an impromptu team-up with the new Batgirl to take down a group of illegal arms dealers he’d been keeping an eye on. They’ve been catching more than just Jason’s attention. The bust ends with him taking an armour-piercing bullet in the shoulder blade and another in the back, but at least he has someone on his side to drag his sorry ass towards some medical attention.

Apparently taking two bullets for the sake of the mission gets him major brownie points, or pity points, in the eyes of the bat brood. He spends three days in a bed at the manor, pumped full of some  _very_  nice drugs while Alfred fusses and scolds him about minding his stitches whenever he fidgets.

The drugs really are great. Now Jason knows that being high as a kite is a fantastic solution for dealing with any awkward family interaction. The only problem is that everyone thinks it’s just the drugs talking when he says he needs to get home to feed his raccoon.

The scavenger probably moved on, Jason figures when he finally gets back to the safehouse, aching but alive. Probably found someone else to mooch off of. Good riddance.

Jason’s most recent painkillers are wearing off, so he swallows a couple more before he heads to bed. His own bed, not the one back at the manor that belonged to him a lifetime ago.

There’s a scratching of claws against the kitchen window. Jason turns and sees the raccoon on the other side of the glass, looking at him expectantly.

Jason rolls his eyes in annoyance, but he’s already opening the fridge to see what hasn’t spoiled while he was gone. Not that the garbage-eating furball will mind if anything’s a little expired.

“Hey, buddy. Hungry?”

The raccoon scratches at the glass again, louder, more insistently. Even though Jason’s back fucking  _hurts_  and he feels agitated and uneasy from spending so much time at the Manor—he’s just not ready for that yet—he smiles a little. It’s nice to have someone who’s always happy to see him, if only because of the food he gives out.

 

 

Dick is in Jason’s kitchen the next morning. He let himself inside while Jason was still asleep.

Jason would be angry about that—his usual policy is to greet intruders with a loaded gun—but the smell of brewing coffee wafting through the safehouse has put him in a generous mood. Even with his back throbbing so badly that he nearly passes out as he stands up.

It’s strange, he realizes. He’s sure he ran out of coffee last week. (He was meaning to go shopping, eventually.)

But he sees that Dick brought some over himself. Along with bags and bags of groceries and containers of food, all unpacked on the countertop and in the midst of being put away. A care package from Alfred, has to be. Enough to fill his fridge properly for the first time since he bought the place. He’s usually too exhausted or busy to shop and cook as often as he’d like. He’ll have to thank the old man the next time he sees him.

He almost feels like hugging Dick, except… there are at least half a dozen reasons why that won’t be happening.

The window’s open and the raccoon, that sly little opportunist, is sitting there all patient and nice while Dick feeds him a cookie. An Alfred-baked cookie. An Alfred-baked cookie that’s supposed to be for  _Jason_.

Dick brought over an entire batch, but Jason still feels a stab of resentment over the loss of that cookie. Alfred’s cookies are in a league of their own. The golden-baked goodness is completely wasted on an animal that’s happy enough eating garbage.

And Dick didn’t even ask before he waltzed in and started spoiling Jason’s raccoon with treats. No respect. Jason’s having second thoughts about not shooting him.

“I didn’t know you had a raccoon friend, Jason. Guess this means you weren’t kidding before, hey?”

“No shit,” Jason mutters, staring at the coffee machine and willing it to brew faster. “You a raccoon lover, Dickiebird?”

“They showed up around the circus grounds all the time, especially after shows. They liked to eat the popcorn the customers dropped. One time I tried to feed one a handful of cereal and it scratched me. I had to get a whole bunch of rabies shots.”

Dick  _smiles_  as he recounts it. Jason just stares. He wants to ask him why the fuck he’s still here. He never actually invited Dick inside.

“Speaking of rabies, um…?” Dick gestures at the raccoon on the sill, one hand inching closer like he wants to pet him but he’s too hesitant.

Jason shrugs. A while back he snuck into a couple vet offices until he found what he thought was the right vaccine, and he put it in the food like he was supposed to, but he can’t guarantee anything.

Dick seems to interpret it as  _go ahead_. He reaches closer, his fingers brushing against the raccoon’s soft ears.

"You’re a stranger, he’s gonna bite—" Jason starts to warn.

But he doesn’t. He sits calmly, making a happy chattering noise as he lets Dick pet and stroke his fur for a full minute. Jason still can’t even touch him without him running away or taking a swipe with sharp claws.

Traitor. He better have enjoyed his cookie, because he’s sure not getting any more Alfred-cooked food. He doesn’t deserve it, not after this.

“Yeah, well…” Jason grumbles pettily, pouring himself a cup of hot, perfect coffee. “I’m the one who got him all nice and domesticated.”

 

 

Jason’s been sitting on a certain piece of good intel for a while. It’s a quality lead. One he’s been meaning to act on it, knowing it’ll become irrelevant if he waits too long, but then he got riddled full of bullet holes. Stubborn as he is, he knows he’s in no shape to destroy any drug operations, not yet.

It’ll be a shame to let the intel go to waste, so he decides to just pass it on to his replacement. Get it off his hands.

His message could have been clearer, he realizes later, when Tim shows up at his safehouse door after checking out the lead. The kid’s face is smudged with grime and flushed with satisfaction and excitement as he elbows his way inside and makes himself comfortable on the sofa. He commandeers Jason’s laptop so he can go over the data he collected immediately and check out Jason’s notes on the lead at the same time, and he doesn’t shut up for the next hour.

Jason hadn’t intended the intel as a fucking olive branch. He just wanted the perps beaten to within an inch of their lives. Made an example of. The place razed to the ground. But instead Tim peeped and spied and discovered a connection to other organizations. Answers to unsolved cases. Enough evidence to put people behind bars for a long time.

He types and talks rapidly, like the connections might disappear if he doesn’t follow them through in time. He grills an annoyed but bemused Jason for every bit of information he has, but hardly shuts up long enough to listen. Jason gives up trying to follow what he’s saying. People will be going to jail, is what he understands as the gist of it. Very important, very bad people.

Exhausted just from listening, Jason finally goes into the kitchen to make some coffee. When he returns Tim’s dozed off on the sofa. Tuckered himself out with his grand revelations. At least he’s finally quiet. Jason picks the dark cape up off the floor and tosses it onto Tim, then heads off to bed himself.

He wakes up to a shout. Rolls out of bed and grabs the nearest gun, still half-asleep.

“What the fuck’s going on?” he asks. Tim is standing by the window, and Jason shoves him aside to take a look.

“There’s something out there,” Tim says, going on tiptoes to peer over Jason’s shoulder. He’s clutching a batarang, all focus. “It was right on the other side of the window, but it ran away. I think it’s—”

Jason spots it—gleaming, glowing eyes against the darkness outside, looking up at them.

“That’s just my raccoon, idiot.” Jason gives Tim another shove, just out of spite, annoyed to be woken up for this. The way Tim yelled, he was expecting assassins. Or at least a corny supervillain.

Tim drops his battle-ready focus in favour of surprise. “ _Your_  raccoon?”

“Sort of. He shows up whenever I’m here and I feed him. We’ve got a pretty good arrangement going on. He hasn’t tried to scratch me for a couple weeks now.”

“You have a pet raccoon.” Tim shakes his head in disbelief. “That’s just— I don’t even—”

“He’s not a pet. It’s not like I’m sticking a collar on him and letting him sleep at the foot of my bed.”

“I guess it’s not that weird,” Tim admits after a thoughtful pause. “I mean, Damian has a  _cow_. Just do us all a favour and don’t catch rabies from it. You’re already hard enough to deal with.”  

Jason’s fingers are just itching to grab him by the neck and toss him out the door. The replacement has long since overstayed his welcome.

“Can I see him?” Tim asks. “The raccoon?”

“No. You can get out of my house before I throw you out.”

Tim shrugs and pulls on his cowl. “Fine. I’ve got a lot more work to do on cracking this case, anyway. Let me know if you hear anything useful.” He folds the laptop closed and tucks it under his arm.

“That’s mine,” Jason tells him, narrowing his eyes.

“I just have to transfer the work I did,” says Tim unconcernedly. “I’ll bring it back.”

Jason steps forward to grab it from him. “Like hell—”

Tim slips underneath his arm and darts out the door. His motorcycle’s already roaring to life and speeding off by the time Jason follows him outside.

 

 

“You’re really letting vermin run rampant on your property, Todd?”

"Not my fault you all keep showing up here uninvited,” Jason retorts.

The brat glances away from the raccoon in the window to sneer at Jason. The sun has barely set, light still staining the edge of the sky, but he’s already in his Robin uniform and ready for patrol.

Jason’s glad he decided to pull on some jeans before he left the bathroom. His hair’s still wet. The brat snuck inside while he was taking a shower.

“Brown made me watch a cartoon movie with one of those mangy creatures as a character.” Damian examines the raccoon through the glass. He sniffs. “I wasn’t impressed.”

Jason doesn’t know whether Damian’s talking about the movie or the animated raccoon, but he doesn’t really care.

“There’s some cat treats in the cupboard, if you want to try feeding him,” Jason offers.

Damian crosses his arms and fixes Jason with a contemptuous look. He sidesteps warily to let Jason reach into the cupboard himself.

“Hey, buddy,” Jason greets the furry nuisance as he opens the window and drops the cat treats on the sill.

“You named it Buddy? How original,” Damian says scathingly. Jason scowls at him.

“That’s not his name.”

“Then what do you call it?”

“I don’t call him anything. He doesn’t need a name. He’s not a pet.”

“You feed him pet treats.” Damian snatches the colourful pouch of cat treats out of Jason’s hand and waves it in his face. “He holds some degree of affection towards you. And he comes when you summon him.”

Jason frowns down at the brat. “Did you actually come here to fucking argue about this?”

“No. My time is more valuable than that.”

“What’re you doing here, then? You better not be here for another fight. You attack me, I just might have to shoot you in self-defense,” Jason threatens half-heartedly, flopping down on the sofa. “And then everyone’ll get pissed off at me.”

"I’m angry with Grayson.” Damian pours some of the little treats into his hand and holds them out for the raccoon. The animal is hesitant at first, but after a few sniffs he decides to trust the boy and picks the treats out of his gloved palm one by one. “He locked away all of my swords, simply because I poked Drake with one.”

“Tough.”

“Drake started it.”

“Fine, I believe you.” Jason doesn’t even know why he’s humouring the kid. By tomorrow Damian will call a truce with Dick and this little spat will be forgotten until the next time. “Doesn’t explain what you’re doing here. You want to be my Robin or something?”

“Never, Todd,” Damian says, bristling. “I just need someone to tag along on my patrol and I’ve decided you will suffice. I refuse to work with Grayson until he apologizes, but if I patrol alone against his wishes he will make me help Pennyworth clean dishes. Like a  _servant_.”

The food is gone and now the raccoon seems intrigued by Damian’s gauntlet, gnawing on his thumb playfully. His little teeth are sharp but can’t break through the tough material. Damian watches him unflinchingly and doesn’t make him stop.

“Still sounds like you want to be my sidekick for the night,” Jason says.

“If anyone’s going to be a sidekick tonight, it’s  _you_ , Todd.”

“Whatever.” Jason gets up and heads for his bedroom. “Just let me get my gear together, brat. We’re leaving in fifteen.”

“We’re leaving in  _ten_.”

 

 

Jason’s expecting the raccoon when his perimeter alert  _dings_. Instead he catches the new Batgirl, Stephanie, climbing inside through his kitchen window.

She plops down to sit on the countertop and holds up her hand in surrender. “Don’t shoot! I come in peace.”

“Nice to see that my locks are working.”

“O gave me your security override codes,” she says, smiling apologetically. He doesn’t bother wondering how Barbara got those. “How’s it going, Hood? Last time I saw you, you were shot full of so many holes you looked like Swiss cheese.”

“Fine.” The wounds are all healed up. He stopped needing bandages a while ago. “You need something?”

“Nah, I was just in the area and thought I’d pop by to see what all the fuss is about. Damian said you had a pet raccoon, and I thought he was joking—well, he doesn’t really joke like most people but you know what I mean—but then Tim and Dick said he was telling the truth. So… show me! I want to see him.”

“Won’t happen. He hasn’t shown up in a while.” Stephanie looks concerned, so Jason sighs and explains, “I’m a bad friend. I’ve been crashing at a different safehouse, trying to scare some gangs out of recruiting kids. The freeloader probably moved on when I stopped being here to feed him.”

“I’m sorry.” She climbs back up onto the windowsill, about to leave. “Hey, I’m sure he’ll turn up again. And when he does, give me a call. I want to meet this Bat-coon.”

Jason stares. For a second he thinks he misheard her, but, nope. She said it.

He gives her a helpful shove off the windowsill to hurry her along. “Get out already,” he grumbles as she leaps down. She sticks the landing with ease and waves up at him merrily.

“That was the worst thing I’ve ever heard, by the way,” he calls down to her. “I’m not calling him that.”

“No, it’s great! It’ll grow on you, you’ll see!”

It doesn’t. His raccoon remains nameless, and missing, no matter how many times Steph pops by right before patrol to talk and convince him the furball’s probably fine, just wandering. And she shows up a lot.

They team up a couple times more, just out of convenience. Just to keep from stepping on each other’s toes—Gotham’s a smaller city than it seems. He finds that he doesn’t mind working with her. Maybe it’s because she’s one of the few vigilantes in this city that he hasn’t tried to kill out of lingering Lazarus-fueled rage at some point.

Business in different parts of town starts taking him away to other, crappier, safehouses.  Hole-in-the-wall emergency bunkers with cots and supplies and not much else. Whenever he has a chance to get back to his favourite hideaway, he leaves out the usual food. No raccoon friend shows up to claim it or climb up to his window, but it’s always gone by the morning. Either the raccoon has a grudge and doesn’t feel like showing his face, or some other scavenger’s moved into the territory.

“Why don’t we just go check it out?” Steph asks when the proximity alarm goes off three times in a row while she’s visiting. He’s thinking of disabling the sensors for good. They’re unreliable and annoying. “Could be that a stray dog moved in and it’s been scaring away your Batcoon.”

“Stop calling him that,” Jason grumbles, not for the first time. But he agrees, and they head out to search the alleyway.

Jason doesn’t expect to find anything. He’s already checked. He leans against the wall and lights a cigarette, listening to the faraway sound of traffic, while Stephanie does most of the investigating.

“Do you hear that?” she asks, tilting her head to the side.

Jason stubs his cigarette out under his heel. “Nope.”

Steph frowns. She walks back and forth down the gloomy back lane to track it down. “Sounds like…”

And then Jason hears it too. Squeaks. Chittering. Makes him think there’s a nest of birds nearby. Steph pushes aside a couple wooden crates in the big pile where Jason first saw the raccoon, the stack that the critter always climbed to visit him, and he finds out he was only half-right. There’s a nest, yeah, but not of birds.

Hidden in a little nook in the middle of the stack is Jason’s raccoon, curled up protectively around three fuzzy baby raccoons with dark-ringed tails, their eyes still closed within their black masks.

Jason stares. He swears under his breath.

They’re too big to be newborns, but Jason has no idea how old they are. A week? A few weeks? He actually knows fuck-all about raccoons. He hadn’t even known that his raccoon was female, much less pregnant. He thought the pest had just been gaining weight from all the free food.

Jason bangs his forehead against the brick wall. He can’t deal with this. “ _Fuck_. Isn’t this just great.”

Steph seems to think so. She kneels down to coo over them. Trying to touch one of the babies only earns her a snap of teeth and an angry noise of warning from the mother.

“We have to name them!” she insists.

“No point. Not like I’ll be able to tell them apart.” The only reason he ever knows his usual raccoon is the same one is by his— _her_ —stunted tail.

“You are going to be in a lot of trouble when they grow up. Three more mouths to feed. I bet Damian will want to adopt one.”

Jason groans. “Just… don’t tell anyone about this. Not yet. I need—”

The unmistakable click and flash of a camera. Stephanie stands, tapping  _send_  on her phone, and glances at Jason.

“Sorry, what?”

Word travels fast. Jason smirks at how quickly Damian shows up—the very next day—and how fucking unsubtle the kid doesn’t realize he’s being. He makes up some transparent accusation about Jason abusing animals and demands to see the kits immediately.

The three new little raccoons are more lively than the night before, purring and crawling around restlessly in their nest. Damian kneels there quietly for twenty minutes until the mother trusts him enough to let him pet one of her babies. Only a short, gentle stroke of fur, and then he backs off. Jason watches, almost impressed. He smiles faintly when a kit playfully bites at another’s fluffy tail.

They are pretty cute.

 

 

Tim’s doing some mixture of yoga and meditation on the floor when Jason bursts through his front door, smudged with black soot and smelling strongly of acrid smoke, carrying a cardboard box of baby raccoons under one arm and the mother by the scruff with his other hand.

The look on the replacement’s face is priceless. Jason would’ve laughed if that evening’s events didn’t have him in such a foul mood.

Tim jerks and unwinds himself from his twisted pose so quickly that he pulls a muscle in his leg, making him hiss in pain. He stumbles, falling back on his yoga mat and clutching at his leg.

“What happened to you?” Tim asks. His eyes dart from Jason to the box to the raccoon as he rubs at the knotted muscle in his calf. “Why did you bring them here?”

“Safehouse caught on fire.”

Jason makes himself comfortable in a cushiony chair, setting the box by his feet and dropping the mother raccoon inside with her kits.

Fleetingly, he feels bad about tracking so much dirt and soot onto the nice carpet. He doesn’t know what compelled his replacement to build such an expensive apartment in such a shithole part of town—maybe yuppie is just in his blood.

“Was it—”

“Sabotage? Yeah, probably. Someone’s out to get me. They fucked up though.” Jason nudges the box with his foot. “I need you to look after them while I check my other hideouts for traps. I don’t know which are compromised.”

“Jason, I can’t babysit your raccoons,” says Tim, pulling on a sweatshirt. It’s much too big for him, he has to roll up the sleeves a few times. “I have things to do. I was going to suit up soon.”

“It’s just for a couple hours. And I’ll make it up to you. I’ll help you out with your things.”

“They’re wild animals, I don’t even know how—”

“Christ, it’s not that hard,” Jason says loudly, getting exasperated. He doesn’t want to argue about this—he wants to find whoever tried to roast him alive and return double the damage. “And they’re not  _that_  wild. Just make sure they stay in the box and don’t get into any trouble. Haven’t you had pets before?”

“No.”

“No?”

“My parents didn’t really like animals. Plus, they traveled a lot, and I couldn’t really take care of one by myself. I went to boarding school.“ Tim shrugs. “So, yeah, no. I used to ask for a dog, or even a hamster, but…”

“Poor Timmy. You’re breaking my heart.”

“Shut up,” he says, scowling. He crosses his arms and watches two of the kits roll around and play-fight in the box, then lets out a sigh. Something in him relents. “Fine, I’ll do it. Just… why? Why  _raccoons_? Why couldn’t it be stray cats instead? Even stray dogs would be okay, but raccoons?”

Jason’s eyes flash angrily. “Why the hell are you asking me? I don’t know how this happened. I didn’t  _plan_  any of this.”

There’s a silence where Tim seems wary about asking anything else. Like Jason is the wild animal here, and he’s trying to tread carefully around him. Good. As long as it’ll shut him up. Jason stays silent, too, glowering darkly down at the box of raccoons.

“Are… Are you okay?” Tim asks. He looks like he already regrets it.

“I’m pissed off at her.”

“What?”

“You’re a bad raccoon,” Jason tells the mother venomously. She makes a low chattering noise in return, curling closer to her kits. He glances up at Tim, who watches him with bewilderment. “Did you know I had to chase her down? Yeah, I saved the kits then found her three blocks over, running away from the fire.” Jason glares at the raccoon again. “You asshole. I thought animals were better than that. They’re supposed to protect their kids. Everyone hears those stories about dogs saving their puppies from fires.”

“Jason, they’re raccoons, not—”

“I  _know_  they’re raccoons,” Jason snaps. “I just expected… It doesn’t matter. Forget about it.” He stands and marches to the door. “I need to go check out my other safehouses. Maybe if I’m lucky I’ll catch this pyromaniac in the act.”

“Wait! Am I supposed to feed them something, or…?” Tim calls after him, but he doesn’t turn back.  

At a complete loss, Tim sits down and stares nervously at the box of chittering, distressed raccoons.

“I… I don’t know what… Um. Okay. Thanks a lot, Jason.”

 

 

Tim isn’t there when Jason gets back. He isn’t entirely surprised. At least that means he doesn’t owe the replacement any favours.

Watching the animals in Tim’s stead are Stephanie, Damian, and the former Batgirl—Cass, the quiet one that Jason’s hardly exchanged five words with. The baby raccoons are in a rowdy mood, rolling and tumbling across the rug, chasing each other’s tails. The mother is lying nearby, keeping a close eye on the kits, but not minding too much about Steph and Damian holding them. She’s gotten used to the two of them from their visits to Jason’s place. Even though she could only have met Cass about an hour ago, she’s already letting the girl pet her.

Cass must be some kind of miracle animal whisperer, like Dick and the demon brat and pretty much everyone except for Jason, apparently.

Steph’s sitting at the foot of an armchair and dangling a shoelace—that Jason’s sure she took from one of Tim’s shoes—in front of a little raccoon, trying to get it to play. She smiles up at him and explains before he can ask. “Tim said he had to go meet somebody, that it was really important for a case he’s working on. So he needed someone to cover. I have  _no idea_  what they’re doing here.” She gestures at Damian and Cass, rolling her eyes in mock annoyance. “I definitely didn’t invite them.”

Damian _tt_ s as he coaxes a raccoon closer with a handful of breakfast cereal from a box he must’ve found in the kitchen. “ _You’re_  the uninvited one here, Brown. Drake asked Cassandra, not you.”

“He called both of us. But I’m one-hundred-and-ten percent sure he never called you, so…”

“Drake bought the building with my father’s money,” he replies haughtily. “ _My_  money. This is my property more than it is his. I don’t need an invitation.”

Like any of them have  _ever_  waited for an invitation before breaking into someone’s home, Jason thinks. He’s not going to stand here and listen to them bicker—he’s already got a bad enough headache. He snatches up the raccoon Damian is hand-feeding, and the one Steph is playing with, earning himself a scowl and a pout, and puts both animals in the box.

He picks up the mother raccoon next. She looks up at him and twitches her ears. She looks almost apologetic, and Jason just sighs because he knows he can’t stay mad forever.

“They like you,” Cass observes.

“They like anyone that gives them food,” mutters Jason, gathering up the last kit. It nips at his wrist when he places it with its family.

He had found another hideaway engulfed in flame, but a couple of dank little bunkers seem to still be under the radar. He’ll stash the ‘coons in one of those, where they’ll be safe, until he can catch whoever made the grave mistake of fucking with him.  
  
“Thanks for keeping them from tearing up the place, I guess.” Jason hoists the box under his arm. Gives everyone a half-hearted wave. “I’ve gotta go teach an arsonist a lesson.” They stare at him, all narrowing their eyes in suspicion. Like being faced with three Batmen. “Aw, don’t give me that look. I’m not going to kill anybody. I’m just gonna rough ‘em up a little.”  
  
He turns to go and finds the actual Batman standing beside an open window, blocking his way. Perfect.  
  
“I heard about the fires,” Bruce says, all business. “I’m going to investigate. Do you have any idea who might be behind them?”  
  
Jason doesn’t want his help. If he did he’d  _ask_  for it. And he won’t. “No, and don’t bother,” he says shortly. “I’m handling this.  _All_  of this.”  
  
He lifts his chin challengingly and shifts his hold on the squeaking box of raccoons. Even though Jason can’t see Bruce’s eyes behind the white lenses, he can tell they glance down at the box. Bruce’s mouth doesn’t so much as twitch, but Jason can almost  _feel_  the man’s rare amusement.  
  
He stomps out. He’s so done, with Tim and Tim’s stupid apartment and Batman and  _everything_. He can deal with a lot of crap, but not with Bruce being  _amused_  like Jason’s a troublemaking kid again that can make him laugh.  
  
This isn’t some kind of joke. This is serious. These dumb raccoons depend on him now, whether he likes it or not.

 

 

The raccoons get settled pretty well in the alleyway outside Jason’s new safehouse. He sets up the place after he chases those arsonists that were targeting him out of his neighbourhood. Long-time criminals and dealers that resent how the Red Hood’s presence in the area destroyed their business. Typical stuff. He sent them packing, no problem.  
  
The new main safehouse is smaller than the old one, creakier and draftier and a little too close to Tim’s place—just a few blocks over—but after living in cramped, spartan bunkers for a while he doesn’t feel like complaining. It has plumbing and enough privacy and a real bed and he’s too tired to move again.  
  
Months goes by pretty quietly. Nobody tries to set fire to Jason’s new home except for Damian, once or twice. Jason’s raccoon buddy sticks around but her kids grow up and venture off, only visiting rarely. Jason thinks it’s them when they show up—he still can’t tell any of them apart.

The sun set about an hour ago and he’s strapping on his holsters, almost ready to head out, when he hears it.  _Scritch scritch_. Scratching on glass.

Right on time. Jason opens the window for the impatient animal and she makes a chattering noise that might be a greeting or might just be greed as he sets down the bowl of food he threw together. A mix of peanut butter and tuna and cat chow that smells rank to Jason but to a raccoon it’s gourmet eatin’.

He knows he’s spoiling her, but he doesn’t care. Winter’s almost here.

He checks his messages. There’s one from Batgirl asking if he’s heard anything useful about that new drug ring, and another from Alfred, letting him know that the demon brat’s been grounded from patrol for trying to sneak a wild badger—a  _badger_ —into the house, nearly getting his face clawed off in the attempt. Jason smirks, until he realizes that Alfred probably blames  _him_  for putting the idea into the kid’s head. Fuck.

One more message pops up when he’s saying goodbye to his friend and locking up to leave. From the replacement. Jason reads it and chuckles—apparently Tim’s having problems with some familiar furry scavengers in his trash cans.


End file.
